The winner of three International Dagger Awards for three successive novels—the first writer to achieve such a feat—Fred Vargas is the pen name of noted French historian and archaeologist Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. Two of those daggers were for her series featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, chief of police in Paris's seventh arrondissement. Called to a ghastly murder scene in this, his seventh outing, Adamsberg does not at first see a link to a strange sight that he witnessed in England only the night before: nine pairs of shoes, complete with feet inside, lined up by London's Highgate Cemetery. With the help of the murdered man's physician, Adamsberg delves into the present victim's disturbed psyche, following a path that leads him to a centuries-old horror from Eastern Europe—one which has apparently come to life and is claiming victims far and wide.

"As ever, Vargas's characters inhabit a world where reason and myth collide, and the result is a thrilling read."—Sunday Times (London)